Let each of us forbear, this one time, on our own account, and on
the other's!'

Disarmed by this glimpse of a woman's nature in the spoilt child,
though for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming to involve
the enforced infliction of himself upon her, Edwin Drood stands
watching her as she childishly cries and sobs, with both hands to
the handkerchief at her eyes, and then--she becoming more composed,
and indeed beginning in her young inconstancy to laugh at herself
for having been so moved--leads her to a seat hard by, under the
elm-trees.

'One clear word of understanding, Pussy dear. I am not clever out
of my own line--now I come to think of it, I don't know that I am
particularly clever in it--but I want to do right. There is not--
there may be--I really don't see my way to what I want to say, but
I must say it before we part--there is not any other young--'

'O no, Eddy! It's generous of you to ask me; but no, no, no!'

They have come very near to the Cathedral windows, and at this
moment the organ and the choir sound out sublimely. As they sit
listening to the solemn swell, the confidence of last night rises
in young Edwin Drood's mind, and he thinks how unlike this music is
to that discordance.

'I fancy I can distinguish Jack's voice,' is his remark in a low
tone in connection with the train of thought.

'Take me back at once, please,' urges his Affianced, quickly laying